


I'm doing better than I ever was

by cozypancakes



Series: A home for my heart [1]
Category: Community (TV)
Genre: M/M, Politics, Quarantine, Romance, jeff and the dean started seeing each other during quarantine, light humor, quick ficlet, right after the humanbeingsforbiden clip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:53:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27320782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cozypancakes/pseuds/cozypancakes
Summary: A short scene after the zoom call for #humanbeingsforbiden.
Relationships: Dean Craig Pelton/Jeff Winger
Series: A home for my heart [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1996321
Comments: 9
Kudos: 37





	I'm doing better than I ever was

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!! Happy Halloween, Happy Samhain! Feliz Dia de los Muertos! Whatever you may or may not be celebrating or mourning, I wish you the best on this Blue Moon. It is so good to be writing again, even if it's something short. I have high hopes to continue You Knew What It Was later this month. I wrote this in about 2 hrs so if it's not my best work...well, I'm just happy to be putting stuff back out there.

“Are those Biden Harris cookies going to be done any time soon?” Jeff asked as he walked into the kitchen. It was a complete mess in there with flour and blue, red, and white icing covering the counters. Jeff looked over Craig’s shoulder. Jeff couldn’t help but cringe. The cookies were more of an abstract art of the Biden Harris logo than anything else. 

Craig sighed and leaned back into Jeff’s chest, putting the piping bag down. “Why the rush?” he asked. 

“You’ve been obsessing over these cookies all day. It would be nice to make use of this Friday night in other ways,” Jeff replied. He wrapped his arms around Craig’s waist and kissed the top of his head. 

“Well, I had no idea that decorating cookies would be this hard!” Craig exclaimed. He pulled away from Jeff and grabbed his phone off the counter. “Look! She made it look so simple!” 

Jeff pulled back slightly as Craig shoved the phone in his face. He blinked a few times before the now familiar face of one Taylor Swift came into view. “You do realize she probably had a personal chef make those, right?” 

Craig gasped, offended. He pulled the phone back into his chest, as if he was physically defending Taylor from the insult. “She would never! Those cookies were made with love and dedication!”

Jeff rolled his eyes but decided it was in his best interest not to argue further. “For what it’s worth, I prefer your cookies any day.” 

“You’ll taste them, then?” Craig asked hopefully. He moved around Jeff quickly and grabbed a plate that had been put off to the side. Craig presented Jeff with the plate. “These are sugarless, flourless, low calorie cookies.”

Jeff looked from the abstract art cookies to Craig’s hopeful face and knew there was only one answer. Jeff gave a tight smile and picked up a cookie. He took a bite and instantly regretted it. He tried not to show his disgust but it was like chewing expired cardboard. Craig, with smile still in place, handed him a napkin. Jeff took it and spit out the cookie. 

“Horrible, right?” Craig asked. 

“You’d tasted it already!” Jeff asked. He didn’t wait for an answer before digging up some juice from the fridge. 

“Of course! A chef always tastes their food before serving. The regular cookies aren’t half bad,” Craig replied. Jeff took another swig from the orange juice before putting it back in the fridge. 

“I think I’ll pass for today,” Jeff said. “There’s still an aftertaste.” Craig laughed as he returned back to his cookies. 

“I heard the end of your speech in there,” Craig stated. 

“Yeah, the biweekly zoom call got a bit depressing and political,” Jeff said. He leaned his back against the counter right next to Craig. 

“Well, thanks to you, that's five more people voting this year,” Craig said. He bumped his hip against Jeff. “For someone who hates politics, that’s a pretty big accomplishment.”

“There’s a 50/50 shot Chang ends up voting for Trump; you realize that, right?” 

Craig scoffed. “Chang would never. He’s a Kanye vote for sure.” 

Jeff laughed. Craig’s dry humor had gotten better over the years. Though he still kept his bubbly optimism and Jeff was immensely grateful for that these days. He watched Craig bite his lip as he carefully piped the three red lines of the E in Biden. His hands barely shook now, which was a lot of progress compared to earlier in quarantine when Craig’s baking had really taken off. 

“Do you think they know?” Jeff asked suddenly. Craig looked up at him, He wiped his cheek and smeared red icing on his face. 

“Know what?” 

Jeff smiled and thumbed the red icing off Craig’s cheek. He licked it off his finger before replying. “You know...do you think they know about...us?” 

“Oh,” Craig said. He scrunched up his face as he considered it, turning to face Jeff. “I don’t think any of them would really keep quiet about it if they had known. Except maybe Shirley and Annie.”

“Shirley loves gossip too much. No way she would keep quiet, at least not with me.”

“Fair point. There’s your answer then.” Craig fidgeted with the bag of icing in his hands. “They probably don’t know. Not that we’ve given them much opportunity to figure it out either.” 

Jeff reached out his right hand to grab Craig’s right hand. He ran his finger over the golden band on Craig’s ring finger. “I was thinking we could tell them. Maybe over Thanksgiving dinner or something.” Jeff continued playing with Craig’s fingers before interlacing their hands. Jeff’s identical gold band shined in the kitchen light as he brought their palms together. It’d been a month and it still did...something to Jeff’s stomach to see the rings right next to each other. The panic had subsided and left behind a mildly pleasant butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling. 

He looked up at Craig’s face. Craig seemed equally enchanted by the matching rings. “Thoughts?” Jeff prompted. 

Craig blinked as he moved his eyes up to Jeff’s. Craig gave him one of those heart melting smiles. The one that made Jeff wonder what he ever did to deserve someone else’s love like that. “I’m happy telling them whenever you are. Though you are gonna have to prepare for lots of questions.” 

“Nothing I can’t handle,” Jeff responded. 

“Really? I think you’re forgetting how the group can get,” Craig said, unsure. 

“Nervous?” 

“Obviously! This is like...meeting the parents!” 

“Woah,” Jeff said, bringing Craig into his arms. “Are you having a freak out about our relationship? Cause that’s usually my job.” 

Craig rolled his eyes. “You know it’s going to get crazy. They’ll ask when we started seeing each other-”

“May 6th.”

“-when did we move in together-”

“Late July.”

“-why so fast-”

“Neither of us could afford to live alone anymore.”

Craig slapped his bicep. “Jeffrey!” 

“And cause we love each other, obviously.” 

“Everything happened so quickly,” Craig said. 

Suddenly Jeff was having trouble breathing. “Is this the group’s questions or yours?”

“What?”

“Are you...having regrets?” Jeff asked. His heart was racing, the room was suddenly burning, he could feel his hands begin to shake. Panic. That’s what he was feeling. 

“No!” Craig quickly said. “Not even a little.”

“But...you have a point. None of this was exactly a fairytale romance, though it had the pace of one.” 

“Jeffrey, no, I didn’t mean to freak you out.” Craig brought his hands up to cup Jeffrey’s face. “I love you and I love that we’re married.” 

“Oh god, they’re gonna ask how I proposed, aren’t they?” 

Craig gave him an apologetic smile. “Yeah, that’s a common question to ask when someone announces an engagement, or, in our case, an elopement.”

Jeff shook his head. He really hadn't thought through how telling the study group would work. Or even how all the events of his relationship sounded when hearing it from an outsider’s perspective. “I really sucked at the romance, didn’t I?”

“Not at all,” Craig tried to reassure him. “Our ‘honeymoon’ was adorable.” 

Jeff scoffed. “It was two candles, some rose petals, and a weekend of marathon sex.” 

Craig tilted his head. “You do realize that’s basically what all honeymoons are, more or less.”

“More. They’re much more than that. And that’s not even the biggest thing!”

“What is then?”

“The proposal! It sucked. You deserved better than that.” 

“Jeffrey-”

“No, I’m serious. Think about it: You’re cooking dinner and I’m setting the table. My phone dings and I mindlessly go to check it and see that RBG is dead. We both sit in shocked silence for minutes; you start crying. And next thing I know, I’m on one knee and...that’s not how these things go.” 

“Do you regret it?” Craig asked. 

“No,” Jeff replied. Craig chuckled and smiled up at him. “I’m missing the joke.”

“You gave that no thought,” Craig started.

“I didn’t mean-”

“Let me finish,” Craig said. “You didn’t hesitate. Right now, when I asked if you had regrets of  _ getting married _ ...you didn’t hesitate. Remember what you told me that night? I was saying you were crazy and this was impulsive and you’d end up regretting it. And you stood there and said…’I’d regret it more if I couldn’t marry you in a month or a year.’ And I believed you. It was the only reason I said yes. You didn’t propose because of the horrible realization that we were about to lose the courts to conservatives for years. You proposed because you...” Craig stopped for a second, taking a moment to clear his throat. Jeff smiled. He would’ve been amazed if Craig had been able to get through this Winger-esque speech without choking up. 

“I proposed,” Jeff started, “because I realized I wanted to marry you and that might not have been possible in the future.” Craig smiled and nodded. Jeff could breathe easier then. He remembered that night pretty clearly. He remembered everything he had felt. Shock, dread, despair, horror. At first it had been for the general state of the country and then for the reality he could one day face. He’d finally found someone he wanted to marry. He couldn’t bear the thought of not going through with it. “You’re right. The group is going to have a field day with the news.” 

“They sure are. But hey, they can call it what they want. Crazy, impulsive, ticking time bomb...I know I’m sure about this,” Craig said. He held up his right hand to show off the gold band. 

Jeff reached out to run his fingers over the band. He grabbed Craig’s hand and brought it up to his face to kiss the gold band. “So am I.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Know that I am sending everyone good vibes and hope you have the opportunity to take care of yourself during the emotional turmoil that will be the next week. If you are able, make a plan to vote. And, most importantly, if you are able, make a plan to take to the streets if anyone tries to steal this election.


End file.
